Chennai, May 19 (IANS)
A 17 year old school boy from Salem who was aspiring to open his own software company landed in trouble after a computer programme he developed and sold to a foreigner was used to send hoax bomb threat mails to schools in Bengaluru and Bhopal.
The boy had developed a Bot software programme (software programme that performs automated, repetitive and pre defined tasks) for an overseas client. The programme was used for sending multiple emails. He sold the programme to a foreign client through telegram App and collected 200 US dollars through Bitcoin as the price of the programme.
However the boy found himself in trouble when Bengaluru and Bhopal police traced to him after finding that hoax bomb threats through e-mails were made to top schools in Bengaluru in April and schools in Bhopal in May.
Senior DCP of Crime Squad in Bhopal police, Amit Kumar told IANS that while the bomb threat turned out to be hoax it took long hours for the Bomb Detection and Disposable Squad to find out that it was a hoax mail. He also said that they traced the mails to the IP address of the 17 year old school boy and found that he was a resident of Salem in Tamil Nadu and son of a librarian. The Bengaluru police also found out that the IP address of the Salem boy was the genesis of the threat mails.
Bhopal and Bengaluru police officers will be serving notice to the boy to cooperate with them in the probe to locate the foreigner who had sent the hoax bomb threat mails to schools in their respective states.
A senior officer of the Bengaluru police said, “ Our team will be serving notice to the boy to cooperate with the probe and to find out the foreign national who was behind this.”
Tamil Nadu Cyber security wing told IANS that the department is planning an awareness among students about the dangers of communicating with unknown persons over the internet and to get themselves engaged with such individuals. The police said that they will create trolls and other social media posts to wean out children from falling into such traps in future.
